World Without Crystals
by CrystalSparkyStar
Summary: The Storm Hawks are sent on Earth. Metal boxes rolling on the ground, large moving bodies of water instead of lava, mass media everywhere, people that work in tall glass rectangles and absolutely no crystal technology? It's kind of hard adapting to a strange new world when you have Cyclonians on your tail...
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: Listen here carefully because I'm not gonna waste time repeating this every single chapter: I do not own Storm Hawks. But I do own a yellow kitty. **

There was nothing but the dark and starry sky that night, to suggest that strange and mysterious things were about to happen.

A lonely Boeing 777 _Air Canada_ flew over the Great Lakes Basin, somewhere over the border between Canada and the USA. It was an average one hour and a half flight from Toronto to New York. Some children were dozing off, two or three teenagers were gazing through portholes at the distant colorful lights of the local small towns and a flight assistant was asking an old lady if she wanted any more peanuts.

It had been an eventless night, they hadn't hit any turbulence and all of the passengers were grateful they were getting closer to their destination. It was, after all, three in the morning. Nobody enjoys a midnight trip. The Boeing left the Niagara Falls and the vast wilderness of Canada behind and headed through more densely populated area that formed the Appalachian region.

Being a night flight, it's obvious that there isn't much landscape to admire outside the plane. In the cockpit, the pilot and the copilot were eyeing the controls lazily. Suddenly, the airplane's radio went on:

"… _unidentified… …rican space… no further…"_

"What was that?" the copilot asked, now looking at the radar. It showed a big dot with another smaller one accompanying it, rapidly approaching the airplane. Two fighters were pursuing the pair of dots.

As the two men looked up, they could see a cross between a motorcycle and a biplane heading towards them. Even more unbelievable was the… _thing_ that followed it. It resembled an aircraft carrier, but it looked like it was made of random pieces of junk and scrap metal. As it was desperately trying to escape the fighters, it came dangerously close to the Boeing.

"Watch out!"

The pilot grabbed the controls and the Boeing abruptly inclined itself 30 degrees to the right, causing some peanuts to be spilled on the floor and some luggage to fall out of the overhead lockers. The flying piece of junk changed its direction too. Now the Boeing and the junk plane were flying in parallel in the same direction, the junk plane over speeding the other. The men stared in astonishment at their new flight companion and blinked in surprise when they saw a raven haired girl and a green bird-like man inside the junk plane, waving at them and smiling friendly. Even weirder, there was a red haired boy on the biplane waving too.

Not giving a damn about the 'turn off your mobile phones and electronic devices' rule, the teenagers took out their cell phones and photo cameras and took as many pictures as they could. A five year old boy waved back. A shocked flight assistant dropped a glass of water that shattered when it made contact with the floor.

The junk plane accelerated and flew ahead of the Boeing. Two CF-18 Hornet fighters engaged them in a dogfight, as their target was now away enough from the passenger plane so they could open fire without risking collateral damage.

The pilots remained in silence, watching the pursuit in front of them. Soon, the fighters and the… _things_ were out of sight, swallowed by the darkness. It was almost as if the fighters, the biplane and the junk plane never existed.

After that, the pilots had a hard time deciding whether or not to quit after landing in New York, not wanting to have any more such experiences during flights, or take credit for this unexpected surprise and say it was the company's idea of entertainment. They thought about this and in the end, they decided to quit. A flight assistant's head popped up through the cockpit's door:

"Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt but the elder passengers are still hyperventilating."

The captain switched on the intercom and spoke, hoping he sounded a bit more confident than he felt:

"_Uh… Ladies and gentlemen, we hope you've enjoyed Air Canada's latest entertainment program. Yes, we know it's a bit… uncommon program and we sincerely apologize for any inconveniences caused by it. It was either this or Jedi on bikes_._ Please take note that this was just a test performance, as we are still debating over whether or not should we use this program on a larger scale. Probably not, because the amount of complaints would be much bigger than the amount of good opinions. So consider yourselves lucky, ladies and gentlemen, because you may never see something like this ever again!_"

When the captain finished, a boy turned to his grandma – who was still trying to breathe normally – excited:

"See, grandma? I told you this company has the best entertainment program! This is totally better than watching movies."

**AN: Here it is, my first real fanfic! What do you think? Tell me if my writing style seems a bit rigid or archaic (it seems to me sometimes). I'm still getting used to writing in English. Reviews are very much appreciated, especially in my case. Please be on the lookout for grammar mistakes, mostly verb tenses or 'if' clauses, because I tend to make them, if you spot any, don't hesitate to point them out. It's a bit weird at the beginning, writing in a language that's not your first but I'm sure it won't be a big problem. I have ideas, but it's twice as hard to put them on paper. **

**Alright, I'll shut up and let you review. ;)**


	2. This Is A Chapter And Its Name Is One

**Author note: Chapter inspired by the episode 41:Number One Fan. Warp Crystals are rare crystals capable of teleporting both people or objects. The crystal may teleport one to a random location, unless a preference is thought of beforehand. Maximizer Stones are my own invention, capable of multiplying the power of a crystal hundreds of times. So I thought: Warp Crystals plus maximum power equals long distance teleportation to another world. Enjoy!**

Torches slightly lit the solitary corridors of Terra Cyclonia. The shadows they casted onto the stone walls resembled a dozen of spiky, clawed, monsters from the old legends. The place was silent – mostly because Snipe wasn't there to smash/break anything – and the Dark Ace would have liked it to remain that way. It wasn't often that he got a moment of peace and quiet among all those good for nothing idiots, so he liked to enjoy these relatively peaceful periods while they lasted.

So far, his day went well. Well, meaning that he destroyed a couple of atmosian villages, defeated some lousy Sky Knights, laughed at Snipe being punished by Ravess for being a stupid moron as always, scared to death some inferior-rank soldiers just for fun and yelled at more others. Ah, what a nice day!

Still, some little annoying thought at the back of his mind wasn't giving him peace. He tried to dismiss it, but it was more annoying than that stupid Storm Hawks Sky Knight; it kept coming back over and over again. Then the Dark Ace realized what was bothering him.

His day went _too_ perfect!

Yep, there was definitely something wrong with that. He never ran into the Storm Hawks, he got to destroy all the Terras he wanted and Cyclonis didn't summon him at all. He was in a good mood and the occasions in which he's been in a good mood lately could be counted on the fingers of one hand. His day had been simply too good to be true! That meant that something really unpleasant was about to happen and ruin his day. By experience, he imagined that it would involve his forever-crazy-and-irate master and if he was really unlucky, it would later involve the Storm Hawks. As always.

"Idiots! Get out! Out before I'll rip your heads off and feed them to the sky sharks!"

'_Here we go again, so much for my good day_.' he thought disappointed.

A couple of Talons ran out of Master Cyclonis's throne room, terrified. The poor souls were quickly followed by crystal blasts. The Dark Ace sighed. He just _knew_ something like this was supposed to happen sooner or later. Thinking he would rather be anywhere else but there, he approached the door, cautious for another round of crystal blasts.

Cyclonis was in there, working at her doomsday…witchy…spider looking… crystal machine…_thing_, as always. Honestly, was that machine even supposed to have a name? She didn't turn around as he entered the room:

"Is there something wrong, Master?" Dark Ace asked innocently. He immediately smacked himself mentally for such a stupid question. '_Of course it is something wrong, moron! I might as well have asked her if she liked pink unicorns!_'

"If it's something wrong? YES, IT IS! _Everything_ is wrong, Dark Ace! Can you guess what?"

'_Wow, this would be _hard_ to guess'_, he thought sarcastically, but before he got the chance to open his mouth, Cyclonis continued:

"Sky Knights!" she spat the words. "Those pesky little Sky Knights, flying around like stubborn flies. Every time you get rid of one of them, another two take its place! A never ending swarm of pests, always getting on my nerves!"

Dark Ace stood there and blinked, not knowing what exactly he should say.

"So… you want me to get rid of them?" he asked.

Cyclonis sighed and with that, a part of the anger vanished. As the tension was released, the air felt suddenly more breathable. She turned her back to her servant, walking towards the crystal machine, her dark cloak fluttering behind her:

"Yes." She said, more calmly. "But first of all, I need a Warp Crystal for my next experiment. There's one left on Terra Nivius Purgamentum. Your primary objective is to bring me that crystal." She explained, oblivious to the other's face behind her. He looked like he just saw Snipe eating a giant cockroach while dancing ukulele. She was sending him on a scavenger hunt?! She had Ravess for that! Cyclonis continued: "The Sky Knight that fended off my first wave of talons called for backups. You might want to take care of the Storm Hawks, as well."

Dark Ace felt like a load of Slime Crystals were dumped on him. He knew it! He knew the Storm Hawks would be involved, somehow. It was official: his perfect day was ruined.

He was smart enough to not complain about it, at least, not within a range of three terras from his master. Maybe he would take it out on some unlucky talon, later.

Cyclonis turned around and tossed him a light green crystal. Dark Ace managed to catch it right before it hit him in the head. For a second, he thought she gave him a new cool weapon with destructive powers to use against the Storm Hawks. Hm. Maybe his good day could still be saved.

"It's an Maximizer Stone, I made it." Cyclonis said. "It's an improved version of an Enhancer Stone, remember that?"

His bubble suddenly popped. Oh, joy. The Enhancer Stone. Another reminder of one of his defeats. He had the Sky Knights finally trapped in a cage – literally – and that idiot Arygyn had to ruin everything training the Storm Hawks.

"Anything else, Master?"

"You'd better not lose that Warp Crystal. Now go!"

"Yes, Master." Dark Ace mumbled with a frown. He bowed and left the room.

(…)

Terra Nivius Purgamentum could be easily summed up in one word: sand. Not the Terra Saharr type of sand, but you can take a look at your cat's sandbox and you'd get the picture. The only things that stopped the Sky Council from demolishing the Terra and sell the rock to the construction companies (a very appealing thought because those sky sharks would pay a fortune for them), were the ancient Warp Crystal mines (of which nobody cared about). Not because teleportation wasn't an appealing concept, but because the Terra was simply too far away from any sky trading routes for anyone sane to be bothered going there. What was the point of teleportation if it couldn't get you off your stranded ship that had ran out of fuel in the middle of nowhere?

That being said, the best thinkers of Atmos are still trying to find an valid reason of why the people that had drawn the maps centuries ago, wasted ink putting this Terra on the map. Their only answer is that they thought the region looked depressingly empty, so a dot with a ridiculously long name in the middle of it couldn't hurt.

Starling sat on the ground, watching the Storm Hawks playing football. Due to the high temperature on the desert-like Terra, drops of sweat were rolling down her skin. She wore a look that was something between amused and annoyed. The Storm Hawks. Somehow, they never ceased to amaze her. One minute clumsy and ridiculous teenagers, the next minute the most capable warriors in all Atmos. But right now they were leaning towards clumsy and ridiculous. More than once she seriously considered their offer to join them, but she knew deep inside that she was better off alone; her place wasn't truly with them. Take for example, football. Starling knew she would never shake off her carefully built shell of seriousness to take part in such a game.

Aerrow and Junko were passing the ball to each other using combat moves. Unfortunately for Finn, who was sunbathing on the runway sipping a drink, Aerrow miscalculated the ball's trajectory and as it flew past him, Finn received a direct hit, ending up being covered in his own drink. Piper had gone exploring the Warp Crystal mines. She should have been back by now. Starling was getting increasingly bored, as Piper was one of the few responsible and mature people she could talk to. Stork seemed the most mature of them all, but all he did was lock himself up in the _Condor_ muttering something about how a football ball can easily rip your head off your shoulders if it hits you with enough force, so he didn't actually counted.

Starling shook her head, wishing that they would stop that nonsense and get serious. They had no time for silly childish games! They should be preparing for the next wave of Talons.

Of course, their idea of 'training' consisted in Stork's crazy-face test, so what did she expect?

Piper emerged out of the mines, a glowing purple stone in her hand. Starling got up and walked to her:

"Finally! I was wondering what was taking you so long."

"Sorry, Starling, most of the caves were empty. I had to search a far more extended area than I expected." Piper showed her the crystal. "It's the only one I could find. I guess all the others were used up when Ravess attacked this place."

If there was one thing the Storm Hawks were grateful for, it was that their 'number one fan' abandoned his trailer of obsessions and moved to live on an actually inhabited Terra. They still had no idea how Noob had been convinced to do this, but they certainly weren't complaining. The last thing they needed was a nerdy ten year old snapping pictures of them.

"We should take this to Atmosia. At least there it will be kept in a safe place." Piper suggested.

"You mean that now we have to fly all the way back?" Finn exclaimed revolted. "Our fuel doesn't agree with this, Piper. Why can't we just use this thing to teleport us back there?"

"_Because_ it's highly unstable! I've seen these crystals in action just one time before and just because they teleported Ravess back to Cyclonia, it doesn't mean I'm willing to trust them completely. You don't know what could happen. If something goes wrong, who knows where we'll end up? Maybe inside a mountain, or maybe in the Great Expanse, or… worse."

"Alright, this speech would make Stork proud. Let's just make sure he never hears it." Finn and Junko broke into laughter and high-fived.

"Talking about Stork, I wonder if he got that ventilation system working. We could use a little air conditioning. This place is as hot as the Wastelands." Junko asked.

Stork put down his copy of '_One Thousand and One Deadly Diseases and Hopeless Ways Of Fighting Them'_, bending the corner of the page he stopped reading at. Sighing, he leaned his head on his right arm, he looked sadly through the window at his teammates having fun at football. He _wanted_ to join. He wanted to have fun and put the worries aside, for once. And his friends were very persistent in their efforts to try and drag him out of his 'safety zone' to join the fun. Sometimes, the kindness and joy they showed to him really surprised him, as he thought he hasn't done much to deserve them. Most of the time, he'd just step aside, let them do the dangerous fighting,, throw sarcastic comments at them and generally being a walking depression. Still, they loved him for what he was. He appreciated that, nevertheless.

Suddenly, the _Condor's_ alarm went off, causing him to fall out of his chair. Already thinking of the worst possible scenarios, Stork

"Attention people! You may want to pack your things and hop up. We're having guests!"

But the others already knew that. In fact, it wasn't easy to ignore the wave of red crystal beams being shot towards them.

"Aw, man! Can't he wait a little bit more? I didn't finish my soda yet!" Finn said in an irritated voice, while running towards the _Condor_.

They got on their skimmers and they deployed into the skies. In the heat of the moment, Piper forgot to put the Warp Crystal in a safe place and instead, she put it into her pocket.

'Attack!" the Dark Ace commanded and the Talons obeyed, opening fire immediately.

Then, several things happened at once. Aerrow got ready to perform the Lightning Claw on the Dark Ace. The Dark Ace also performed his signature move, but he targeted Piper. She managed to avoid it, but she didn't notice the Warp Crystal falling from her pocket. But Aerrow's attack hit the Dark Ace, causing him to drop the Maximizer stone.

Stork brought the Condor below the battle, making sure he would catch the crystals. Piper was heading towards the crystals too. In the meantime, Finn insisted that Junko should wait for him to finish his soda on the Condor, saying that "Aerrow and Piper can handle it 'till then." Aerrow noticed Piper heading after the crystals and went after her.

The crystals simultaneously hit the Condor's launch pad. The unstable Warp crystal shattered, exploding with a brilliant purple light, and the Maximizer stone enhanced the effects of the explosion.

The explosion of light could have easily been spotted from the stratosphere. The wind started to blow, more powerful than every storm, cyclone or atmospheric phenomenon on Atmos combined.

Starling screamed. The Dark Ace covered his eyes.

With a final flash of light, the Storm Hawks disappeared.

**AN: Yeah yeah, yeah, you don't have to tell me that it took me so long to update that you thought I gave up on this story, I know it already. It's just that I had major writer's block on this story and I honestly don't know what to write about when they do arrive on Earth. The next chapter is much longer and almost finished, but after that… I don't know what happens and I didn't really give much thought about it. Anyways, enjoy this fic (as little as it is)!**

**P.S. I also know that the last part of this chapter feels rushed, stupid and it reads like a bad deus-ex-machina. I lacked inspiration and wanted to be over with it quickly.**


	3. A Never-ending Terra Is A Continent

**Author note: I figured that since Atmos has crystal based technology that doesn't pollute one bit, Earth's air, with all the chemicals, emissions, gases and global warming stuff should seem thin, dirty and almost unbreathable for atmosian lungs.**

* * *

They were falling and screaming. For a good period of time, that was all they knew. They were collapsing into a seemingly endless void, pushed by unknown forces into several different directions simultaneously. It made them feel sick. In a short time, they didn't care where would they land, they just wanted to _land_ already.

Then, they were suddenly back into reality. But they were still falling. Aerrow felt the wind racing furiously against his ears and as he looked down, he managed to see the green wild landscape beneath him. The ground was closing fast. He couldn't reach to his skimmer in time. He didn't even had time to shout a warning for the rest of his teammates. Closing his eyes, he hoped the contact with the terrain wouldn't be too painful.

They hit the grass.

Everything went black.

* * *

Slowly, Piper regained her consciousness. She tried to open her eyes, but only saw shades of blue and green dancing before her eyes, as she was still dizzy. She closed them, waited for a while until the dizziness had somewhat passed and opened them again.

One thing was sure. She was… somewhere in a forest.

The rest of her team groaned while trying to get up. '_Ok, so we're all still alive. That's good. Now, first things first. Damage inspection,' _she thought. They still had their heads on, no limb was missing and they were still breathing. The surroundings? Trees, lots of grass, clear blue sky, no sign of Cyclonians anywhere.

So far, so good.

Wait. Not so good. Something was wrong. There was something in the air… literally.

Piper's eyes went wide open, as she inhaled.

She started to cough violently, as the thin, dirty and polluted air literally burned the inside of her lungs. It felt like she was inhaling smoke. And Piper wasn't the only one. All her teammates felt like they were about to vomit.

"_Gaah_, man… what… is this?!" Finn managed to ask, between coughs.

"It's disgusting!" Aerrow said, his face a slight tent of green,

"I… need a gasmask!" Junko said, on the verge of tears.

"Is everyone alright out there?" came their helmsman's voice from inside the Condor. Stork's voice was trembling with fear, but you could make out a hint of concern for his friends, too.

It took Junko a while to stop coughing, catch his breath and respond:

"Sure, buddy! You can come out, there's no rampaging beast around! But be careful, this air is…"

He trailed off, having a new cough attack.

"What? The air's what?" Stork asked, now completely worried. "I knew it! It's poison! Get back in here, if you don't want to slowly die a painful, agonizing death by asphyxiation!"

"Are we on Terra Gale?' Finn whispered. He would have been his normal loud self if the effort hadn't been that great for his lungs. That was one thing Piper was grateful for: Finn was once in his life, silent.

"Not even the factories on Gale are like this." Aerrow said, in a hoarse voice.

"I calculate that the atmosphere is breathable, but at the limit of supportability." Stork said from underneath his spacesuit. "If we inhale it for too long, the risk of a sudden mutation increases by 95 percent."

They got back into the Condor. It seemed that the risk of air poisoning managed to get Stork to fix the ventilation system in record time. He even installed an air filter that was converting the thin stinky air outside into the more healthy and clean Atmos air. They waited until Stork was finished and the air was clean enough for them to be able ho hold a decent conversation without coughing.

"Well, now that everyone seems a little better, let's focus on the important things. Any idea where we are?" Aerrow asked, looking at the faces of his teammates with hope.

They shrugged.

"Judging by the air outside, we may be on some heavily-industrialized terra," Piper said, although looking unconvinced.

"Or maybe we are in an alternate dimension of hell where everything that moves wants to eat us and slowly digest us over the course of hundreds of years!" Stork added, already freaking out.

The statement only gained him some bored glances from his friends.

"Honestly, I don't think that if we sit in here and come up with theories we'll find out where we are. I say that we go out there and do some scouting – come on, we've faced things worse than some stinky air!" Aerrow added, when he saw the others flinch at the thought of going outside. "Finn, you come with me, we'll head east on our skimmers and see if we can find some locals, or something. The rest of you, stay here and guard the _Condor_."

During the time it took Aerrow and Finn to exit the command deck and open the _Condor's_ door, Stork had already equipped himself with a gasmask and full body armor, prepared to face whatever germs and airborne microorganisms the weird environment would throw at him.

"What do you think we'll find?" Finn asked Aerrow while hopping on his skimmer.

"I really don't know. But whatever it will be, I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle!" he said reassuringly.

They started their skimmer's engines, relaxing a bit, as the sound reminded them so much of home. Then they took off…

Or not.

"Oh. I guess I should have told them that the air is too thin to sustain them." Stork commented plainly, as he watched his two comrades crash into the trees. He then activated the Condor's comlink. "You may wanna get back in here so I can upgrade your skimmers. You'll need extra power if you want to stay afloat."

* * *

_17 Wing/CBF/RCAF/Station Winnipeg_

_Manitoba, Canada_

At the same time, hundreds of miles away, two air traffic controllers were supervising the cloud filed skies of western Canada. To sum it up, it would have been hard for the men to miss two spiky-haired boys flying on some sort of crosses between biplanes and motorcycles, which looked like they were made from scrapped pieces of junk.

The fighter pilots didn't need to be told twice what to do. They haven't been sent in a mission for months.

Two CF-18 Hornets took off.

* * *

_Somewhere near the border_

_Canada, Earth_

Piper was nervous. She couldn't think. And that meant big trouble.

Piper was rarely nervous. Most of the time, she was the one who thought of a solution to get the gang out of trouble. She was the one who stayed calm in the face of danger. She was the one that used her _brain_.

Oh, sure, she was calm, at the beginning. After all, they probably were on some uncharted Terra at the edge of known Atmos, somewhere near the Barrier Cliffs or the Black Gorge. Still, that wasn't a big problem. They had escaped the Great Expanse so flying back to civilization was a piece of cake. But if her theory was true and by luck they were at the edge of known Atmos, then what was it with the air? Air just doesn't suddenly change its composition like that!

Then she started imagining bad 'what if' scenarios.

Then Junko observed the environment closer. First, the plants. Wherever they were, there were plants, which meant that the atmosphere, even if it was the thinnest and poison filled air she'd ever breathed, was capable of sustaining life. That was a good thing. The bad thing?

Neither she, or Junko couldn't recognize any sort of plant!

What if they weren't on some random Terra? What if they were on the other side of the Barrier Cliffs, on the Far Side of Atmos? That could probably explain the weird vegetation but could it explain the highly toxic air composition? Nope. '_Worlds'_ she thought, '_just don't have half of their atmosphere normal and the other half soaked with gas emissions_.'

Then she realized her 'unknown Terra' theory was probably good for nothing.

Then Stork presented her his diagnosis of the atmosphere. It was 78% nitrogen, 1% other gases and… only 21% oxygen. This startled Piper, as the concentration of oxygen in Atmos's air was 24-25%.

That was the last straw. The only logical explanation was that they weren't in Atmos anymore.

She wanted to throw her hands in the air and scream in frustration '_Where are we?!' _but she doubted her lungs could perform such an Olympic task in the stinky air.

She could hear Aerrow and Finn's skimmers approaching. The boys landed near her.

"So? Any clue where we are?" Piper asked with a glint of hope in her eyes.

She had a bad feeling about this and Aerrow's answer just fueled her fears:

"Nope. Sorry, Piper. We've flown towards east hundreds of miles. We've actually flown so far we were afraid we might get lost if we continue. We had to get back otherwise we would have run out of energy."

"Yeah, but we didn't found anything interesting." Finn assured her. "It's just mountains and forests and rivers and lakes – and I mean really large lakes. Oh, and lots of terrain. It keeps spreading in all directions." Finn coughed. "Man, this is one _huge_ Terra."

"I've never heard of a Terra such large." Piper said. "Every Terra must end somewhere."

"We saw _something_ out there, before we got back to you. But it was strange. It was like a city of sorts, but it wasn't like any other city I've ever seen. It looked like a gray and silver stain in the middle of this green wilderness and it had grey paths stretching out in all directions."

"So there is a civilization out here after all!" Piper exclaimed, hope returning to her. Maybe they could get help from the natives.

"Hold your horses, here comes the strange part," Finn interrupted. "It had these huge silver buildings popping out from the ground. They were so tall that the Beacon Tower would seem tiny. And they had strange shapes like rectangles, or cylinders, or cones."

"Good. If people can live there, then the surely have some gasmasks or at least purify the surrounding air, 'cause I'm asphyxiating here!" Stork mumbled. It was very hard to understand him because of the protection equipment he was wearing.

"I don't think so, Stork,' Aerrow said, apologetically. "It felt like the emissions in this air were increasing as we were getting closer. From a certain distance, we could actually see thick smog covering the settlement."

"No doubt the gases were coming from there." Finn said, feeling the need to grab an inhaler at the simple thought of remembering the smell.

"Then we surely aren't in Atmos anymore," Junko concluded. "If the air is so poisoned here in the middle of nowhere, then imagine how it is in those so called cities of yours. No one I know could resist such level of air poison, not even Wallops and that's saying something."

"The ones living in there must be cannibalistic mutants, no doubt," Stork said, in a creepy voice. "It won't be long until they'll find out about us and eat our organs for dinner."

This kind of attitude wasn't helping Piper a bit.

"Stork, what makes you think they're hostile?" she asked irritated.

"What makes _you_ think they're peaceful?" he retorted.

Aerrow decided to put a stop to the incoming argument.

"Look, we can't stay here and wait for something to happen. Sooner or later, our crystal energy will run out so we'll be completely stranded. We don't know anything about the inhabitants of this world, if they're friendly or nor, if they're human or not, if they use crystal technology or not, but we know for sure that they are civilized." Aerrow turned to his Merb pilot: "Stork, is the _Condor_ still able to fly?"

"It is, but don't expect her to break the speed record." Stork grunted. "Given the air's composition, it can barely maintain itself above the tree line."

"Doesn't matter, the point is that we have a transport meaning. I say we fly towards east to the city Finn and I saw. We'll not go into the city, but we will land the Condor close enough to it so if something happens we can get help."

Most of his friends seemed to agree with his plan, except Stork.

"And what if they will lock us down and experiment on us like lab rats instead of helping us?" he asked, his eye twitching, his body slightly shaking. He was thinking at the various torturing devices that could be found in a research facility. Add to it that the devices were alien so that only made them scarier. "How do you know if they have ever seen a Merbian before? What if they eat Merbians for dinner?"

Aerrow sighed.

"They won't do that, Stork. Trust me. I'm sure they eat normal food like pizza, or spaghetti, and with all this vegetation they surely have at least one type of cabbage."

Finn and Junko's good mood level had skyrocketed when hearing 'pizza' and 'spaghetti'. At that point, they didn't care if the world's inhabitants were Raptors or humans, they were cool guys just because they ate pizza. Even Stork seemed to change his mind.

"Merb cabbage?" he asked cautiously.

"Uh… sure. Merb cabbage." Aerrow answered a bit hesitant.

Finally, Stork shrugged and got back into the _Condor_. "I'm doomed anyway. Might as well make my imminent death as enjoyable as possible."

Aerrow clapped his hands. He was happy that the overall team's mood was brighter, a huge improvement from a couple of minutes ago.

"Alright, then. If everybody's ready, let's get going. I will ride with my skimmer, just in case of surprises."

Raddar had already jumped into the copilot's seat by the time the young Sky Knight got there.

* * *

_Five hours later…_

_Past the border with Ontario._

The sun was setting. They had been travelling almost all day and the terrain _still_ showed no signs that it was gonna end soon. And by Stork's warnings, who knew what mutated beasts could be roaming the forests of this poisoned world below them?

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

…

"Are we there yet?'

"No."

…

"Heeey, are we there yeeet?"

"Nooo!"

…

"Are. We. There. Yet?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"No!"

…

"What about now, are we there yet?"

"No, we're not!"

…

"Now are we there yet?"

"Yep, he has mind worms. It's only a matter of time before we're all infected."

The _Condor's_ crew knew that Aerrow said it was a long way to the nearest settlement, but they didn't think it was _that_ long. Piper was astonished by the size of this Terra, or whatever it was. The gang was flying for hours. The _Condor_ was slower than normal.

In the meantime, the air traffic controllers at Little Grand Rapids and Bloodvein River Airport were wondering what was with the big red and unpleasant looking dot that suddenly appeared on their radars.

Piper remained inside the _Condor_ instead of sitting on the observation dock like usual. At least the air inside the _Condor_ was cleaner, due to Stork's air filter. While inhaling, Piper wondered how she endured the atmosphere outside.

It remembered her of that time when they had to fly into the stratosphere to stop Ravess. They had to wear breathing suits, though for completely different reasons.

Piper had overcome the initial stress and now she was bored, more than anything else. Everywhere she looked, there were forests, rivers, an awful lot of lakes and sometimes she could spot the grey paths Aerrow talked about.

Suddenly, the sunlight reflected on something on the ground. For a short second, the light was nearly blinding, as it hit Finn right in the eyes.

"Take cover! The natives are trying to shoot us down with their death rays!" Stork immediately pushed one button on the _Condor's_ control board and metal shields descended and covered the windows. Everything was pitch black.

Aerrow activated one of his blades, to make some light. He could see his teammates were perfectly fine, but he nearly had a heart attack when he saw Stork. The Merb was wearing a gasmask, complete with a motorcycle helmet. Must be noted that he stood inside a anti-reflection barrel, so he looked like a gigantic insectoid larva.

Aerrow sighed. Poor Stork. He was extremely paranoid in normal everyday situations, but now, being on a completely different and strange world, he achieved a new level. Though… who'd know? Maybe in this case, he was right to be paranoid.

"Stork, I don't think it was a deathray, it could have simply been the sunlight's reflection on something." Aerrow tried to explain, as calmly as he could.

"How do you know?" Stork's voice came, as if heard from inside a sewer.

"Because if it was a death ray, we would be dead by now! You didn't saw the city, if the beings on this world could make such weird buildings, then they'd make pretty efficient deathrays, don't you think?"

"Seriously dude, turn on the lights. If I'd wanted to not see my hand in front of my eyes I would have went in the Black Gorge." Finn commented.

The larva thing that was Stork, replied: "No!"

"Um… we might hit a mountain?" Junko tried, scratching the back of his head.

Stork squeaked and immediately hopped out of his cocoon. In a few seconds, the windows were clear. The landscape hadn't changed a bit and there was no sign of a mountain anywhere nearby.

"I could have sworn that was a death ray." Stork muttered.

"Still, what was that?" Junko asked as he pulled the spyglass from the ceiling and started looking around.

There was another brief reflection. It came from a nearby grey path. Junko whistled in a mixture of surprise and amusement as he spotted a brightly colored box made of metal and glass rolling on the path. It had… wheels!

"Now that's something you don't see every day!" Junko laughed and they all took a turn to look at the rolling box.

"Do you think it's got natives inside?' Aerrow asked.

"Well, if they'd rather roll around than fly, they have a pretty lame transport system if you ask me!" Finn commented.

"Finn, first thing. Nobody asked you. Second– "

The _Condor's_ alarm went off, scaring everybody. "Incoming! We're under attack! Native flying death machines of doom!" Stork shouted, pointing at the two CF-18 Hornets approaching fast from the distance.

It didn't seem like the machines constructors were adepts of subtlety and stealth, Piper noticed, as they could hear the roaring engines despite the fact that they were hundreds of meters away. It didn't took the Hornets long to close the distance.

"What on Atmos are _those_ things?!" Finn shouted as Aerrow looked terrified at the strange flight machines that were circling them, like a pair of wolves that discovered their prey.

They didn't look like skimmers or heliscooters. In fact, Aerrow couldn't even find a name for them. They had that grey/silver color, just like the cities colors, so they must have been the natives property. They looked completely otherworldly; moving so fast that all he managed to see was a blur and making a powerful _woosh-_ing noise. Aerrow also noticed that they never stopped to hover in midair. If those things were so advanced, why was it so hard to simply hover? Their wings seemed fixed and they were made of a strange metallic alloy, while the pilots stood inside a small glass protuberance in the front section. Aerrow wondered why, were they afraid of heights and didn't want to fall off? Or maybe they protected themselves from the unpleasant air. Maybe the natives of this world lived in invisible glass domes that had fresh clean air. Who knew? Aerrow managed to spot a white rectangle bounded by two vertical stripes of red and a red leaf in the middle. It didn't resemble any kind of Sky Knight Squadron symbol he knew.

"We're not a threat, we want to go home!" Aerrow shouted at the fighters, but for some reason, their pilots didn't seem to hear him.

"Aerrow, get inside, now!" he heard Piper in his communicator. "They can't hear you, they can only communicate with us by radio!"

"Wait, you mean they speak the same language as us?" Aerrow asked surprised. "That's great! We can tell them that…"

"Aerrow, they're not in a friendly mood, if you haven't noticed," Piper replied between clenched teeth. "They say we're trespassing Canada's airspace, although I don't know what on Atmos does 'Canada' mean, but I suspect it's some kind of Terra. They also say that if we don't do as they say, they'll shoot us down."

"So they _are_ hostile!" Aerrow exclaimed, a hint of anger forming inside him. He already disliked these metallic flying machines that threatened his friends and swarmed around him.

Finn, Junko, Piper and Stork cringed as the Condor's radio came to life once more:

"_Unidentified aircraft, this is your last warning! Deactivate all your weapons, stop fooling around and follow us back to base for interrogation, or else we will open fire. Over_."

"Yep, Piper, they are definitely peaceful." Stork commented giving the girl an 'I told you' look.

"Great, what am I supposed to tell them now?!" she shouted with a mix of fear and anger. "Aerrow, make up your mind already!"

Aerrow was having a hard time deciding wether to fight or flee, but he figured out that he wouldn't have much chance against the metal flying machines, so the survival instinct took over.

"Evasive maneuvers!" he called to the others.

While the _Condor_ accelerated into one direction, Aerrow headed in the opposite direction, hoping that the metal flying machines would come after him, giving his team some time to land and hide the ship. He was wrong. One fighter took after the Condor, while the other one was hunting down Aerrow.

Aerrow made some sketchy maneuvers, zigzagging, looping, accelerating and changing direction at impossible angles. The metal flying machine, however, although obviously lacking the agility and maneuverability of a skimmer, made up for the difference with incredible speed in straight lines. Aerrow continued this way for some good five minutes, but every time it seemed that he'd lost the metal aircraft after a series of acrobatic turns, it would suddenly catch up with him, accelerating and reducing the distance when he tried to escape, thus making all of his progress useless.

After a while, the aircraft's pilot had had enough.

Aerrow barely even had time to realize that the fighter opened fire towards him. He was just preparing to pull another stunt on the airplane, when he heard from that direction, a sound somehow resembling a Firebolt crystal's shot, but it had nothing… crystal-like about it. It sounded more like raw metal fired out from a barrel. It was a strange sound.

All of a sudden, Raddar was in his driver's seat, clinging to him. Aerrow turned his head just in time to see the little copilot's seat being blown to shreds by an almost invisible round of projectiles.

On one hand, he thought, that was the ultimate evidence that those people were using something other than crystals as technology. On the other hand… how was he supposed to dodge the machine's fire if he couldn't even _see_ it?!

He headed for the rest of his team, which, luckily, had not been engaged in a dogfight as he'd been. Yet.

"Run!" he shouted, flying past them.

Stork didn't need to be told twice what to do.

* * *

"Stork, do you even know where we're going?" Piper asked, worried, holding onto a loose pipe, while Stork was desperately trying to dodge the fighters gunfire.

"As far away from _them_, that's where I'm going!"

Night had fallen and if it was hard to get a sense of direction during dayime on this weird world, at night it was almost impossible. Sure, the two military aircrafts chasing them didn't make the situation a whole lot better, either.

"If anyone's got a plan, I'd like to hear it!" Finn said, looking at the Hornets right behind them.

"Um… I don't know… we should…" Piper was at a loss. "Land and talk to them?"

For a moment, everyone looked at her as if she was crazy.

"What? They seems eager to negotiate earlier."

"Yeah sure, _earlier_." Finn said sarcastically. "As in, you know, _before_ they started to fire upon us!"

They fell on the floor, as the ship received another blow.

"That's it! Junko, Finn, battle positions!" Stork yelled angrily. How dare those aliens or whatever they were harm his little baby ship?!

Junko and Finn rushed to the _Condor's_ side cannons, but before they even had the chance to take aim and fire, the airplanes launched one rocket each and obliterated them. Luckily, the two friends had the brains to abandon the cannons and get inside the moment they saw the rockets.

Aerrow could no longer tolerate this. It was one thing for aliens to attack him, but his friends? That was going too far. He executed a looping that made almost made Raddar puke and got behind one of the airplanes. He then prepared to do what he did best: jump on other's aircrafts and take on the pilots.

Just that…

Now that he thought about it, _how_ exactly was he going to manage that? The thing didn't look like it was designed for someone to _simply jump on it in midair,_ like a skimmer. On the contrary, just looking at the neat metal, he realized that no living thing could stand on it. The only things he could have used were the trapeze-shaped boards at the machine's rear, but even those were too close to the awfully-loud engine.

Suddenly, why the pilots stood in the glass cylinder made a lot more sense.

Okay, so jumping on it was out of question. There was, one more thing he could do.

Aerrow got ready to perform the Lightning Claw on the Hornet. Just about when he was ready to release the energy, the other one positioned itself behind _him_ and opened fire from an angle that would keep his partner out of the firing range, but not Aerrow. Raddar squeaked and took control of the skimmer, flying it chaotically through the air, making Aerrow lose both his balance and concentration, the finishing blow remaining undelivered. Aerrow felt the gunfire two millimeters away from his cheek and he decided to retreat inside the Condor. It went against his principles, yes, but it was clear that he had no chance of winning alone against these things.

Meanwhile, in the _Condor_…

"Aerrow's in trouble! Stork, do something!" Piper screamed.

"Do _what_?! Those things took out all of our firepower without breaking a sweat, if you didn't notice!" Stork said, pointing towards the carbonized masses of metal that were the Condor's defense cannons.

Junko heard none of this, as he was staring out the window at something… he didn't know how to describe it.

"Uh… guys? You may want to see this. Also, Stork? You may want to look at the road when you're driving."

"_What_?" Then Stork saw it too. "Oh. GET OUT OF MY WAY!" he yelled, grabbing the helm and changing he _Condor's_ direction, just in time to avoid a midair collision with a Boeing 777 _Air Canada_. They flew in parallel for a couple of seconds.

The Storm Hawks stared at the Boeing's passengers.

The passengers stared back.

"Uh… shouldn't we do something?" asked Junko blushing.

"Just… just… let's smile and wave and eventually they'll go away." Piper said, and she, Junko and Finn did exactly that.

They were somewhat pleasantly surprised to see that a human boy waved at them too.

Aerrow noticed that the moment the two machines observed the… enormous… other… flying thing, they stopped firing. Sensing the opportunity to safely get inside, he flew in the space between the giant… well... passenger ship, because he noticed the people inside staring at his friends, and, now, at him also. A human boy was waving and smiling and a female dropped a glass of water in shock. Aerrow waved and smiled too and got inside the Condor. There was no reason to be impolite with kids.

"Huh, don't they know that it's rude to stare?" Junko asked, already feeling embarrassed.

Then the teenagers aboard the other ship pulled out some mini hand-held devices, pointed them towards the gang and then started to push some buttons on the other side of the devices. Or so it looked like for our heroes.

"Careful! They've got soul-sucking mini-cameras! They'll hypnotize you with those things and then they'll capture your soul inside them! GET ME AWAY FROM THEM!"

Stork put the pedal to the metal and the Condor flew past the Boeing, accelerating into the night. He'd rather be blown to pieces by the Hornets than have his soul sucked into a mobile phone.

Of course, as soon as they distanced themselves from the Boeing, the rounds of fire started again.

"Stork, what was that for?! We were safe… or, not, but at least they'd stopped firing at us!" Piper yelled.

"Uh… I don't know, I was starting to feel a little embarrassed." Finn said.

"You? I was the most embarrassed!" Junko whined. "They were looking funny at me. You'd think they've never seen a Wallop before in their lives."

"Actually, Junko, I don't think they have." Aerrow said, joining in. "Did you saw them? Did you notice anything weird about them?"

"You mean except the fact that they have obvious judgement problems as they can't seem to decide whether they like to travel on the ground or in the air?" Finn commented, sarcastically.

"No, Finn." Piper turned to Aerrow: "It was the fact that they were all humans, was it?"

He nodded. "It was only a small group of people, but if we judge by their reactions, then I'd say that this place… world, whatever it is, is populated exclusively by humans."

"Which means that myself, Raddar and Junko will have a one-way ticket to Dissectionland if we land." Stork said grimly.

"Uh… guys?" Junko asked.

"Did you saw that little boy waving? They can't all be that bad." Piper said.

Junko tried again. "Guys?"

"So? That doesn't prove anything!" Stork continued.

"Guys!" Junko screamed this time, covering their voices.

"_What_?!"

"Listen, they stopped firing." Junko lifted a finger and silence fell on the _Condor's_ main deck. Even the sound of the Hornet's engines was gone.

"They just… left?" Aerrow was honestly surprised.

"Simple as that? No 'Bye-bye, it was nice knowing you'?" Finn added.

"Huh. I'm not complaining." Stork said. He returned to the helm and that was when his breath stopped. He motioned towards the others: "You may want to see this, also."

They came to the window and their jaw dropped.

In front of them, the blackness of the night was pierced by what they could have described as a giant Terra Neon, only ten times more beautiful and colored. It shone so bright that it actually seemed to have an aureole of light surrounding it, keeping the darkness at bay. The grey paths they had noticed earlier, almost all had turned into sparkling wires of gold, pulsing as they converged towards the clutter of lights, forming an almost impossible-to-follow maze inside of it. The amazingly tall, but dull and metallic buildings Aerrow and Finn saw earlier, had turned into proud powerful and sparkling ones, full of life. As they flew above it, they saw that the city was spreading seemingly endlessly, defying the darkness. They saw almost every imaginable color of the spectrum flashing, blinking, for miles and miles beneath them. Giant, almost blinding panels were hanging off the tallest buildings, displaying some commercials, others were probably announcing some messages – in some sort of alphabet the Storm Hawks had never seen before, so they could have only guessed. Inside that sparkling refuge of civilization, hundreds of meters below them, they could distinguish the metallic boxes from earlier making their way through the maze of streets, and the humanoid silhouettes of the natives walking along them.

"It's…" Aerrrow started.

"…So cool!" Finn finished.

"It's beautiful!" Piper said.

They stood in silence admiring the view, as the city passed by beneath them.

"Be careful how you're driving, buddy," Junko warned, as they flew past a skyscraper.

After a while – it seemed too short for the Storm Hawks, the city ended, but the fragile-looking golden wires beneath them remained, spreading ahead into the darkness. Quite a few rolling boxes were using them.

"Now where?" Junko asked.

"Well, we may have escaped our welcome committee, but I think it's only a matter of time before the natives throw something else at us. And we've barely managed to escape those two, surely they have more weapons of death ready for us. I don't know you, but I want to leave this horrible world while still in one piece."

"We all agree with you, Stork, but I think that we also realize that sitting here insie the Condor and hiding isn't gonna do us much good."

"Then what do you propose, Piper, hmm?" Stork said mockingly, raising an eyebrow. "That we go right up to the locals and say something like "Hey, we're visitors from another world. Say, you don't happen to have some crystal energy we could use to go home, right? Oh, and by the way, don't give any attention to the two non-humans and alien rabbit that we've got." Stork paused. "Yeah. That'll win them over."

"Please don't start fighting; we're in a bad situation as it is!" Junko pleaded. It hurt him to see his friends like this.

Aerrow sighed and walked away from them. He wasn't in the mood for a fight right now. He stood on the observation deck for a couple of minutes, watching the bright lights of the alien city fading into the distance.

Now, there were just the stars and the distant, cold moon to keep him company. He sighed as he watched the stars, wondering if back on Atmos, Starling and their friends were watching the same stars.

Who knew, maybe one of those twinkling dots, far away, was really Atmos. Maybe he was watching his home.

* * *

**So… this is it. I have some vague ideas as to what the future chapters plot will be like, but… I don't know when I'll post them, or **_**if**_** I'll post them. I think that I simply lost interest for this story. To all those who liked it so far, I'm really really sorry. If you want, you can continue it from where I left it. Seriously, you can. I'd love to see your ideas. Just don't forget to give me credit. **


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